KEST
Encyclopedia
KEST is a radio station in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. Most of the station's programming is foreign, such as India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, and other Asian languages. KEST does English-language programming during the week, usually from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., which consists of New Age Talk.

KEST is owned by Multicultural Radio
Multicultural Broadcasting
Multicultural Broadcasting is a media company based in New York City founded by Chinese-American businessman Arthur Liu. Multicultural caters mostly to the Asian American community and owns television and radio stations in several of the top markets in multiple languages.-History:This company was...

 which owns several stations across the country. KEST broadcasts around the San Francisco Bay Area; its signal is 1000 watts. It is currently affiliated by Independent and Sino Chinese Radio.

The station was signed on by a local church and began broadcasting in the 1920s. It was not very popular, but in 1939 was purchased by Sherwood Patterson, who changed the call letters to KSAN. New studios were constructed in the Merchandise Mart near Market Street; a 250-watt transmitter was installed in a tower on top of the building. Listenership dramatically increased with a format of popular music (evolving into rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 by 1955 or so) and disk jockeys such as Les Malloy, who would purchase the station himself in the early 1960s. Malloy changed the call letters to KSOL
KSAN (AM)
One of the first "rhythm and blues" radio stations in the United States, KSAN , known later as KSOL , was located in San Francisco, California...

 and strengthened the rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

/soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

 format targeting the African-American community; the station launched the career of popular 1960s and '70s musician Sly Stone
Sly Stone
Sly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...

, who was one of the station's DJs. The format changed to a general-market music format by the early 1970s.

On April 10, 1996, KEST adopted a talk and world ethnic music format to compete with KVTO
KVTO
KVTO is a radio station broadcasting a World Ethnic format. Licensed to Berkeley, California, USA, the station serves the San Francisco Bay Area...

.

In 2009, KEST became part of Multicultural Broadcasting.

External links

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